The Agricultural Cooperatives of Family Agriculture of the State of Rio de Janeiro and the access to the public institutional market

Abstract

Brazil has a long history of building public policies in food and nutrition security, and one of the innovations in the recent period corresponded to the regulation of public food purchases from Family Agriculture (FA). This article aims to characterize the agricultural cooperatives of family farming in the State of Rio de Janeiro (ERJ) and problematize access to the institutional market, focusing on two essential programs: the National School Feeding Program (PNAE) and the Food Acquisition Program - Institutional Purchase (PAA-CI). Secondary data were used, both those made available openly and those obtained via the Access to Information Law (Lai), to outline the profile of agricultural cooperatives linked to Family Agriculture in the ERJ, as well as to analyze the potential for access to each of these Programs based on the geographical location criteria established by the PNAE and the PAA. Most of these cooperatives were created in the second decade of the 2000s to formulate public procurement policies that favor PA. These organizations are characterized as small and medium-sized due to the number of members who mostly have DAP and achieve local priority for both programs, predominating the categories of family farmers and agrarian reform settlers in their corporate composition. The study helped to elucidate that, given the characteristics of PA cooperativism in the state, government strategies and actions are still necessary to qualify its access to the public institutional market.